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XII.— SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 



By SAMUEL M. DAVIS, A. M., 

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MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 



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SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 



Bv Samuet. M. Davis. 



The treaty of cession of the territory of Louisiana to the 
United States by France was one of the most important state 
papers, viewed, from its consequences and results, that has 
ever been signed by representatives of our Government. In 
securing this territory for the United States by a single stroke 
of the pen, far-reaching and wide-extended results were to fol- 
low which would affect not only our national domain, but also 
intimately have to do with the entire future history of our 
country. 

Viewed from the standpoint of the mere acquisition of terri- 
tory, it was most important. We secured by the Louisiana 
purchase 1,124,685 square miles of the richest and most fertile 
territory on the North American continent. The original thir- 
teen colonies contained not quite one third as much territory 
as was added to the United States by this single treaty. The 
original colonies were a mere fringe of territory upon the At- 
lantic seaboard, and while they had certain indefinite claims 
upon the territory west of their immediate boundaries, yet the 
single fact remains that by this purchase we acquired a right 
and possession to territory three and one-half times as large as 
the entire thirteen colonies. The original United States were 
bounded on the north by Great Britain, on the west and south 
by Spain, and on the east by the ocean. An area of 827,000 
square miles has become an area of 3,600,000. Parallel 31° 
north and the Mississippi Eiver have given place as boundaries 
to the Gulf of Mexico and the Eio Grande, the Pacific Ocean 
and British America. Out of the imperial domain from this 
magnificent purchase could be carved twenty-seveu States of 
the size of Ohio; thirteen States as large as the State of Min- 
nesota. When compared with Texas, our largest State, there 
would be room enough to carve out four as large as that great 

151 



152 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Southwestern republic 5 and compared with Ehode Islaud, our 
smallest State, there is sufficient to make nine hundred of the 
size of that diminutive Commonwealth. More than twelve 
imperial commonwealths have been carved out of this vast 
acquisition. One of the most striking evidences of this vast 
domain and of its admirable position is the remarkable growth 
of the United States in this direction. In the immense material 
development and material expansion of our country toward the 
west, it does not seem probable that the territory acquired by 
the Louisiana purchase will soon, if ever, cease to be the most 
important in our entire national domain. The acquisition of 
this territory made it possible for the United States to have a 
greater continuous and more absolute expansion than that of 
almost any nation known in recent times. The development of 
this added territory caused the remark of that great English 
statesman, William E. Gladstone, to become a truism, when 
he said that the United States has " a natural basis for the 
greatest continuous empire ever established by man." 

The purchase of this territory not only added vastly to our 
national domain, but the large area thus brought under the 
sway of the General Government caused some serious, and at 
the time alarming, considerations. It caused many internal 
dissensions among people who had different views in the po- 
litical world of that time. One class of politicians boldly 
asserted that this purchase had set up the principle that Con- 
gress may violate the Constitution, providing the majority 
of the people approve it. These strict constructionists main- 
tained that the General Government had no authority to 
purchase by treaty or otherwise or to annex any territory 
whatsoever. There was a class of politicians who also main- 
tained, not only on the floor of Congress, but actively declared 
it among their constituents, that the balance of power between 
the North and the South was disturbed. They were active 
in stirring up the Federal press of i^ew England to clamor 
for separation, and by all means in their power encouraged the 
leaders of their faction in Congress to lay plans for secession. 
Massachusetts was the leading Commonwealth in raising the 
cry of disunion. 

They asked for an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. In June, 1803, a motion calling for the amend- 
ment to the Constitution was read before the General Court. 
The preamble of this motion is significant. It set forth at 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 153 

length tlie principle tliat the Union of the States could not 
exist on terms of inequality; that the representation of slaves 
was a concession of the East to the South, and that this rep- 
resentation was injurious and hurtful from the very first; that 
the harm and injury had been augmented by the multiplica- 
tion of slaves and by the purchase of Louisiana, and that, in 
order to preserve the Union, the Constitution ought to be 
amended so that representation and direct taxation should be 
apportioned among the States according to their population. 
The advocates of the proposed amendment stoutly maintained 
that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was in danger; that 
her sovereignty and her independence were swiftly and surely 
being taken away; that her influence in national councils had 
already been reduced to a nullity; that the power of the South 
over the North was due largely to slaves, and that a crisis was 
at hand. They charged openly that this enormous territory 
that had been recently purchased would be eventually cut up 
into new slave States, and that these new States would be 
committed irrevocably to a national i^olicy hostile to the best 
interests of New England. 

The idea in the minds of the New England leaders was that 
the equilibrium of the National Government was seriously 
disturbed by adding such a vast extent of country in the 
Southwest which was open to the introduction of slaves. They 
feared that the power and prestige of New England in the 
national councils was soon to be destroyed. They argued that 
the vast extent of the Southwestern States that were to be 
carved out of this new domain, that the richness of their soil 
and the ruling place they held in politics on account of their 
peculiar institutions, would cause them at no distant day to 
outstrip the North. These men were honest in their convictions. 
They believed that the purchase of Louisiana was a threaten- 
ing menace. They proceeded upon the theory that the thirteen 
original colonies formed a sort of partnership, and that there 
was a certain balance of power nicely adjusted between the 
various interests of the North and the South, and this equili- 
brium would be utterly destroyed by the annexntion of the 
new territory. They believed that new States would be formed, 
and that by means of these new States the South would 
govern the East and the North, until possibly Western States 
could be formed which would in turn govern both the South 
and the East. So in the oi)inion of wise men of that day it 



154 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

was decided tliat separation was the only thing to save the 
prosperity of their State from utter ruin. However, wiser 
counsel prevailed, and men of patriotic principles and far- 
seeing judgment came to the rescue of the nation, and saved 
it in its early infancy from the humiliating spectacle of an 
internecine war growing out of a dispute about a great 
national institution which subsequently had to be settled by 
an appeal to arms. In view, however, of subsequent history, 
it is interesting to reflect that the earliest talk of secession 
came not from those who lived and profited by the institution 
of slavery itself, but fiom men who were the descendants of 
the founders of civil liberty in New England. 

Another of the unfavorable consequences of this purchase 
was the raising in the breasts of certain ambitious and evil- 
designing men the idea of founding a separate and. independ- 
ent government in the Mississippi Valley. It had long been 
the favorite project of turbulent spirits to found such a 
government. This enterprise was especially favored and for- 
warded by Aaron Burr. Defeated as a candidate for governor 
of New York, the slayer of Alexander Hamilton betook him- 
self to the wilds of Kentucky. Here he consorted with Bleu- 
nerhasset, Wilkinson, and men of like designs, and planned 
and plotted to found a government independent and hostile 
to that of the United States. The difficulties experienced by 
those living in the Mississippi Valley in marketing their prod- 
uce, after the closing of the mouth of the Mississippi hy the 
Spanish, added fuel to the flame, and furnished a motive to men 
who were not bound by the strongest ties of fealty to the 
General Government to break away and found a sepaiate and 
independent commonwealth, acknowledging no allegiance and 
denying the jurisdiction of the General Government over 
them. 

Another of the consequences of the acquisition of this terri- 
tory from France relates to the colonization of the west. The 
original colonies formed a republic that fringed the Atlantic 
seacoast from Maine to Florida. The fact that the mouth of 
the Mississippi was controlled by Spain and France was not 
conducive to the (;olonization of the great valley of the Missis- 
sippi through the mouth of that river. At the time of the 
purchase Florida was owned by Spain and England held the 
provinces to the northeast. So it became necessary that 
increasing population should flow westward, following the 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 155 

parallels of latitude. This stream of people toward the setting 
sun fouud i(s way across the Allegheiiies and through their 
fertile valleys into the vast plains drained by the Mississippi. 
The frontier of the original colonies was steadily advanced 
toward the west by the sturdy and self-reliant pioneers. The 
frontier line was pushed westward, not because the statesmen 
of America or the majority of the American people saw with 
prophetic eye the continental greatness of this country, nor 
did either strive to accomplish such greatness, but the steady 
stream of emigrants was advanced farther and farther toward 
the west because the bordermeii of the outlying settlements 
and the adventurous land speculators of the east were person- 
ally interested in acquiring new territory. These two classes 
of people forced the Government representatives to make the 
interests of the pioneers their own, and the Government was 
forced to and did throw around the adventurous emigrants the 
protection of national authority. These westerners, living in 
the free and untrammeled wilds of a new country, grew up 
without any distinct allegiance to the National Government, 
but when they came in contact with an adversary, either the 
native Indian or the outposts of the British or the French, the 
settlers naturally and rightfully looked to the Government at 
Washington to give them protection and assistance. These 
hardy pioneers were the ones who actually made it possible 
for the Government to conquer and to wrest from the posses- 
sion of the savage or from the control of foreign powers a great 
part of what is now our most prosperous national domain. 
The inhabitants east of the Alleghenies were interested in the 
quarrels of European nations. They were concerned iu the 
rights of the fisheries they shared with England, and they 
were soliciting a share of the trade they hoped to secure from 
Bpaiu. They did not covet the lands of the Indian. Many of 
them had never heard of the Eocky Mountains. They cared as 
little for the Missouri and the Mississippi as for the Congo or 
the Hoang Ho. They believed that they were entitled to the 
country between the Gulf and the Great Lakes, but they were 
content to allow the Indians and the Frenchmen to occupy the 
territory, and they formed no desire to drive them out. It was 
therefore left to the frontiersmen to advance the wave of civil- 
ization toward the Pacific. It was but natural, therefore, that 
the purchase of Louisiana, adding as it did so many thousands 
of square miles to our territory in the west, should give great 



156 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

impetus to these western frontiersmen and trappers to push 
their conquests beyond the Father of Waters and to plunge 
into the fastnesses of wildernesses as yet unexplored. 

The true history of the cession of Louisiana is to be found, 
not in the doings of the diplomats, who merely determined 
upon the terms of the transfer, but in the western growth of 
the people of the United States from 1769 to 1803. This 
western growth of population made the accession of Louisiana 
inevitable. The real conquerors of that vast territory, which 
in the early times was known by the name of Louisiana, were 
the men who settled and peopled the western wilderness. 
France surrendered her vast claims only before the persistent 
advance of the American settler. Napoleon saw much more 
clearly than did our ministers at Paris and Madrid that no 
European power could hold the country beyond the Mississippi 
when the Americans had made good their foothold upon its 
banks. It was during the two or three decades following this 
period that the great part of the United States known as "The 
West" rose to its real power in the Union. The boundaries of 
the old west were made certain and the extreme limits between 
the Mississippi and the Pacific were added to the national 
domain. 

The'adding of this vast region caused the steady movement 
of population westward. This effect has not, even to this day, 
been obliterated. New settlements were founded, and com- 
munities which before had been almost wholly made up of 
French population came to have in them a large infusion of 
Americans. There was considerable adventure and danger 
connected with" this western movement of population — enough 
to invest it with a halo of romance. Americans, also, wherever 
they went, were zealous propagandists of the blessings of civil 
liberty wliich they had themselves but recently achieved. The 
times were full of unrest and commotion. The French Revolu- 
tion had just passed over the heads of that devoted people, 
and France had emerged under the strong hand of Napoleon. 
The restlessness under absolute rule had communicated itself 
even on this side of the Atlantic to peoples beyond our borders. 
Everywhere there was readiness for revolt. The results of the 
American Eevolution and our consequent influence and control 
in the west and south seemed to have jDlaced upon the shoul- 
ders of the young Republic the duty of extending free institu- 
tions to the nations beyond our borders. The expectations 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 157 

and hopes of the nations of the earth were fixed upon this 
young Eepubhc, that it would offer help to all incipieut move- 
ments toward revolution in the Spanish i)rovinces of Central 
and South America. 

The acquisition of the territory of Louisiana was not directly 
and immediately caused by a sudden overflow of poj)ulation 
from the eastern portions of the country, crowding out and 
extending the frontier. The regions west of the Alleghenies 
were in a large degree sparsely settled, and in the greater por- 
tion the Indian title was not extinguished. Many places were 
not even as yet explored. The enormous productions of the 
soil in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, however, made it nec- 
essary to secure an outlet more convenient and more easy of 
access than the toilsome journey across the mountains to the 
seaboard. It was therefore only a question of time when the 
possession of the mouth of the Mississippi would be demanded 
as one of the necessities of western commerce. The great 
value of this outlet was early and fully understood both by 
Spain and France, and it is not difficult to understand why 
they should have interposed so many hindrances and delays to 
our acquisition of the great commercial highway of the Mis- 
sissippi. They readily understood that the power which con- 
trolled the mouth of the river must inevitably control the 
territory which it drained, and naturally become the dominant 
factor on the continent. The steady and inexorable pressure 
of Anglo-Saxon persistence upon the upper waters at length 
thrust out all European opposition and gained a complete vic- 
tory at the same time at its mouth. This victory by purchase 
was a victory of peace, but no less a victory. The necessities 
of l^apoleon and the dread of England were the exigencies 
which were the immediate occasion of the cession. It is more 
than probable, however, that the result would have been the 
same within a short time, even without these emergencies. 
However accidental the accession of this vast territory west of 
the Mississippi was, yet it was nevertheless most desirable and 
helpful. The main object sought at the time negotiations were 
opened was an uncontrolled and unimpeded passage out of the 
river, so that the sturdy westerners could find a market for 
the teeming produce of the Mississippi Valley. The wily Tal- 
lyrand almost thrust into our indifferent hands the regions 
beyond the great river. Our ministers only insisted upon the 
island of New Orleans to the east and a place of deposit and 



158 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

port for the shipment of our goods at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. Our minister in Paris, Mr. Livingston, had such slight 
regard for the value and possession of the vast trans-Missis 
sippi region, and was so hampered by difficulties in compassing 
the price which IsTapoleou asked, that he suggested to Mr. 
Madison that if only New Orleans and the Floridas could be 
kept, the purchase money might be realized by the sale of the 
territory west of the Mississippi, along with the right of sov- 
ereignty of some power in Europe, whose vicinity we should 
not fear. 

The acquisition and purchase of this territory was a trans- 
action for which, in this country, there had been no precedent. 
President Jefferson admitted that the j)urchase and annexa- 
tion were unauthorized, and even went so far as to propose 
an amendment to the Constitution. To give sanction to the 
measure, he wrote: "The Constitution has made no provision 
for our holding foreign territory; still less for incorporating 
foreign nations into the Union. The Executive, in seizing the 
fugitive occasion which so much advances the good of the 
country, has done an act bej^ond the Constitution. The Legis- 
lature, in casting behind them the metaphysical subtleties and 
risking themselves, like faithful servants, must ratify and pay 
for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing, for 
them, unauthorized, what we know they would have done had 
they been in the situation to do it." 

A further result of no small importance growing out of the 
acquisition of this territory was the vast increase in the sweep 
and scope of the American policy which the large increase of ter- 
ritory compelled. It can not escape our notice that in the very 
early days of the Republic there was a restricted range of in- 
terest in the matter of congressional intention and enactment. 
The nation, by its acquired territory, had now gained a wider 
sweep and a broader held in which the statesmen of the day 
could show their ability to legislate and to govern. In the treaty 
of 1782, while the freedom of navigation of the Mississippi 
Eiveris yielded to Great Britain, and the whole subject of its 
possession by the United States occupies but a few scant lines, 
the fisheries on the eastern coast are dealt with in minute de- 
tail. The question of the peculiar protection to be extended 
to rice occupied the attention of the first Continental Congress 
for several days, and threatened the loss to the American cause 
of one of the revolting colonies. But it was not strange that 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 159 

entirely new and vastly extended interests should appear when 
the domain of the Union came to be extended across the width 
of the continent and to stretch from the Lakes to the Gulf. 
Great departments of the Government were called out by the 
enlarged and complicated relations resulting from the treaty 
of purchase. New and peculiar duties were created; not only 
with other nations ou this continent, but also with the Euro- 
Ijean continent in its bearing toward the nations of the West. 
It was this wider sweep and broader view in the political 
administration of the United States that called for the declara- 
tion of the Monroe Doctrine, and which has continually widened 
and enlarged its scope. We can rightfully ascribe the incep- 
tion and growth of our national policy on this subject to the 
commanding importance our national interests assumed subse- 
quent to the Louisiana purchase. 

The j)6sition of the United States in the early years of our 
national life was dignified, yet defensive. With national 
growth came the recognition and assertion of the place which 
this country must hold before the world, both by reason of its 
geographical position and also on account of the peculiarity 
of its political princii)les. It is both pleasing and gratifying 
to our national pride to now recall that even in the days of 
our greatest weakness there seemed to be a sure proj)hecy of 
our coming greatness. We exhibited a noble resolution in 
asserting, at that early day, principles which could only secure 
their full interpretation afterwards. It is almost impossible to 
overstate the consequences which, in the development of this 
country, the purchase of the Louisiana territory has had. The 
circumstances and the intluences connected with this critical 
event in the history of our country have wrought out results 
much more momentous than would at first glance be generally 
supposed. 

It would be interesting and instructive at the same time to 
observe the influence upon legislation and practice in certain 
portions of this country of the civil law as checking and affect- 
ing the use of the common law of England, and which came 
to prevail in Louisiana under the extended dominion of the 
French. Scarcely less suggestive would be a study of the 
mode of dividing the lands in severalty in communities with- 
out fields in common, which had its origin with the customs 
which the French brought with them to Louisiana. This fea 
ture was developed prominently in early land litigation, and 



160 



AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSO 




has interesting associations in connection with early Saxon 
use. 

The noble river, which, with its continents, is the crowning 
feature of, and gives the distinguishing value to, this purchase, 
drains half the continent. The Father of Waters, as Mr. Lin- 
coln said, goes unvexed to the sea, with its head among the 
northern ice-bound lakes and its outlet in the tepid and trop- 
ical waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It binds together the inter- 
ests of the various latitudes through which it passes, and 
makes it possible for the people living upon its shores to be a 
single, great, free, and united people. As one has fittingly 
said, " In its majestic movement, and in its constantly increas- 
ing extent and sweep, it fitly symbolizes the history and future 
of the American Republic. It steadily and quietly moves on, 
drawing to itself all confluents from its wide domain without 
effort, and then carrying easily in its bosom the elements which 
had their rise in widely separated regions, until they merge 
themselves in the benignant depths and width of God's great 
purpose in forming and maintaining the nations of the earth." 
Thus early acquired and subsequently developed, the vast val- 
ley of the Mississippi has become a most important part of our 
national heritage, peopled as it is with the free, homogeneous, 
and patriotic citizens of our grand liepublic. 




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